Friday, May 30, 2008

Looking back on the years since 9-11, it is hard to give the Bush foreign policy passing grades. We pushed NATO eastward and alienated Russia. We have 140,000 Army and Marine Corps troops tied down in Iraq in a war now in its sixth year, from which our NATO allies have all extricated themselves. We have another war going in Afghanistan, where the situation is as grave as it has been since we went in.

The Bush democracy crusade was put on the shelf after producing election triumphs for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, after Iraq, appears to be headed there, as well.

Are we safer now than we were 8 years ago pre-9/11? If we are, has the cost in terms of American lives, money, and the constantly expanding nanny state been worth it?

In the final analysis, I don't think one can come to any other conclusion than it has not. One thing that Pat doesn't mention about our foreign policy is the risk that our trillion dollar a year liability puts us economically. Which, in my mind is the greater threat to us (and always has been).